


I'm Sorry, Buck

by OccasionalStorytelling



Series: Bucky Recovers from being the Winter Soldier [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky is having a hard time, Crying, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Bucky Barnes, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Brainwashing, Steve wants to make it easier for Bucky, doing the laundry, hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 05:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5079808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OccasionalStorytelling/pseuds/OccasionalStorytelling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky has recovered from being the Winter Soldier... mostly. He and Steve live together in an apartment now, but life isn't easy. Steve loves Bucky, and he's doing his best, but sometimes the Winter Soldier resurfaces. Steve wishes there was something he could do about it. He knows Bucky is under there, trapped, if Steve could only free him. Steve wishes there was no way for him to accidentally trigger the Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Sorry, Buck

**Author's Note:**

> Bucky has recovered from being the Winter Soldier... mostly. He and Steve live together in an apartment now, but life isn't easy. Steve loves Bucky, and he's doing his best, but sometimes the Winter Soldier resurfaces. Steve wishes there was something he could do about it. He knows Bucky is under there, trapped, if Steve could only free him. Steve wishes there was no way for him to accidentally trigger the Winter Soldier.

“You’re adorable,” Steve laughed. He did his best to stifle a giggle, but Bucky wouldn’t have noticed. Bucky was fully concentrated on the T-shirt in front of him, which he was precisely folding into a square.

Steve smiled. It had been a month now that he and his boyfriend were living together, and a year since Bucky had gotten his memory back. “Thank you, Stark,” Steve thought. Every day, Steve would wake up and see Bucky next to him and nearly cry from joy. The life they had together was perfect.

Yesterday had been their first shopping trip together. All of Bucky’s clothing was ripped or too dirty to ever be cleaned again, so Steve had taken him to the mall. Bucky had a frozen yogurt, and kept licking his lips and smiling all day when he thought Steve couldn't see him.

The shirt he had just finished folding had an Iron Man design on it. Steve scoffed, but found matching shirts of all the avengers’ logos for Bucky. Bucky’s favorite was the Black Widow themed one. He picked it up now and continued folding, absorbed in his work.

Steve leaned forward over the basket of laundry and brushed a lock of hair behind Bucky’s ear. Bucky quirked a lip for a moment, but didn’t look at him. His mouth was open just a little bit. His eyebrows were furrowed in concentration. He was adorable. Steve loved the way he looked when he cared about something.

Soft clinks of metal from Bucky’s fingers accompanied the rustling of clothing. In the background, a playlist of music was running. Steve had made it with Sam’s help. Sam said that listening to it would help the two lovers get back into the swing of things, but Steve didn’t think it was working.

“This is… amazing,” Bucky whispered. His eyes never left the shirt. He placed it delicately on the pile and grabbed the next.

“What, laundry?” Steve asked. 

“Don’t knock it, stupid,” Bucky grinned. “It isn’t so bad.”

“Hey, who’re you calling stupid, stupid?” Steve smiled.

“No, seriously,” Bucky said. “I haven’t had personal possessions in so long… much less an outfit I could maintain for myself.”

Steve chuckled. “Maybe you could do mine, too!”

It happened then. Steve hated when it happened. Sometimes, he wished that when this happened, Bucky would try to kill him again. Instead, Steve had to deal with a side of the Winter Soldier that was even harder to face.

Bucky straightened up. His bright eyes lost a little of their shimmer, and focused on Steve now. He froze, mid-fold, and stared at Steve. He smiled, and what killed Steve was that it was HIS smile. It wasn’t obviously faked, or anything Steve could have dealt with. It seemed… genuine.

“When?” asked the Winter Soldier, in a voice clear and rich. Steve gulped.

“What…?” he asked. He never knew how he set off the Winter Soldier, but he wished there was some way to scrub the brainwashing from Bucky, permanently.

“When do you want it done by,” The Winter Soldier clarified. He bent over and began folding with urgency. The creases remained precise, but he was going much more quickly than before.

“No, Bucky,” Steve choked. “Please, you don’t have to do this.”

The Winter Soldier didn’t respond. The music played softly in the background. Steve hunched into himself and tried to keep working on the towels, but a strong, firm hand pulled it out of his grasp. A strong metal hand.

The Winter Soldier had finished his pile of laundry and was doing the towels. Steve pulled back, pulling his knees up to his chest and tried not to cry. That would make it worse, it always did. Eventually, the Winter Soldier would shut down and Bucky would return to him. The horrible scene lasted only a few minutes at most. Steve watched a stranger control his boyfriend’s body, and tried not to care. He didn’t succeed. At last, everything was done. The Winter Soldier tried to get up to put the clothes and towels away, but Steve pulled at the leg of his pants.

“Please, Bucky,” he whispered. “Come back.” 

The Winter Soldier tried to pull away. 

“Buck!” Steve said. “Please.” 

The Winter Soldier froze in place.

“Buck… I need you back.”

A shudder passed through the Winter Soldier’s body. Bucky collapsed to the ground on top of the folded sheets.

“Oh, Bucky, Bucky, are you okay?” Steve lunged at his boyfriend, taking his hand and squeezing it tight. He let the tears come. “Bucky, I’m so sorry, I don’t—”

Bucky lay on the ground, breathing hard. It was as if he’d run a very long distance and had only just come back. “It’s fine, Steve,” he panted. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Buck, I’m so sorry.” Steve was trying once again to hold back his sobs. He didn’t want to make his lover feel worse. It was already bad enough that Bucky had to take the backseat to the Winter Soldier, but now the poor man had to deal with a broken-down super soldier.

Bucky didn’t get up. He only squinched his eyes shut and held Steve’s hand tighter. “I’ll need to re-do the sheets,” he said softly.

“No, Buck, you don't have to—”

Bucky was trying to stand up. Steve didn’t let him. Steve clung to his boyfriend in a sloppy hug, pulling him into a sitting position with their legs entwined together.

Steve tried to meet Bucky’s eyes. Bucky wouldn’t look at him.

“Buck,” Steve whispered. “We can get through this.”

“And what if we can’t?” Bucky demanded, in a low voice. “What if it gets worse? What if he took over… forever?”

Steve gently pulled Bucky’s forehead close and kissed the point where skin met perfect hair.

“Buck, I won’t let that happen.”

“What if you don’t have a choice?” Bucky sobbed, pulling away a little bit. He wasn’t trying all that hard to escape, however. “Steve, what if—”

“Nothing will ever happen to you again,” Steve said. “I promise. And next time, I will jump off the train after you. I don’t care if I die; I never want to think you’re gone from me ever again—”

“Don’t you dare,” Bucky sniffed. “Don’t you dare jump off that train after me. You stay alive, okay? You find happiness, even when I’m gone, okay?”

“But you’re still inside there when he—”

“I don’t want to argue. Just promise me,” Bucky said. He was looking at the ground, at his metal hand. He was tapping all the fingers together, one by one.

“I can’t make that promise,” Steve said. “You should know by now that I’ll be with you ‘till the end of the line.” His fingers pushed across the gap between them and brushed against the tips of his lover’s metal ones. The two hands skidded around and over each other before locking firmly together. “I’ll be with you ‘till the end of the line,” Steve breathed, and the two men sat on their apartment floor together.


End file.
